The Tribune Review

We made it! Take a look. So now anyone who sifts through the Trib's webpage devoted Pittsburgh's blogs now has the opportunity to read what you're reading right now!

And so let me take the opportunity to deconstruct one of today's editorials. Here's the set-up:

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid is using the politics of personal destruction to redefine McCarthyism.

Mr. Reid, a Nevada Democrat, announced on the Senate floor Thursday that he continues to oppose judicial nominee Henry Saad because of "a problem" in the highly confidential FBI report regarding the Michigan judge.

And the kicker:

Standing Rule of the Senate 29, Section 5, states that a senator risks expulsion for disclosing the secret, confidential business or proceedings of the Senate.

And a "Memorandum of Understanding" covering FBI background checks states only Judiciary Committee members and the nominee's home-state senators are allowed access to it.

Reid is neither.

And the pay-off:

Now that Reid has let Saad twist slowly, slowly in the wind, the Senate should act swiftly to enforce its own rules in a bipartisan move to expel him.

And finally it ends with the nod to the Right's own McCarthite past:

Until this moment, Sen. Reid, America never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. You have done enough.

Have you no sense of decency?

I have been waiting for this from the Trib for sometime. Since the 13th, at least, where the story was "broken" by Charles Hurt of the Washington Moonie Times.

The Trib says that Reid should be expelled for "disclosing" some secret or confidential Senate business. With many thanks to kos, I'd like to point out that the file that the Trib feels is so "highly confidential" seems to have been mentioned more than a year ago in the Detroit Free Press.

Did Senator Reid disclose the contents of that file? No. Was the existence of the file already known? Yes.

So tell me again, why should Senator Reid be expelled?

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An Update: After digging around the great work of others, I found this. It's also from the Washington Moonie Times. It's also from Charles Hurt. Like the piece in the Detroit Free Press, it's also from about a year ago. Here's an interesting paragraph:

From the moment Mr. Hatch began the meeting, he struggled to get the quorum required to vote on a nominee. As soon as a quorum gathered, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, requested a private meeting to discuss accusations stemming from Judge Saad's FBI background check.

Please note the last sentence. Looks like it was Charles Hurt himself who established the existence of Judge Saad's FBI file.

Here I am, one guy sitting in the library and over there there's the whole dang Tribune-Review. And who gets the story right?